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Notes -
The problem with the view that ethno-nationalism is "truer" than civic nationalism is that French ethnogenesis is something that actually happened. The France of Louis XIV was a dynastic-religious state where elites had to speak French in order to communicate with the Court, but Louis didn't care what his Breton, Norman, Gascon etc. subjects spoke or identified as as long as they paid their taxes and were good Catholics. The France of Emmanuel Macron is a nation-state where everyone (except unassimilated immigrants) speaks French and identifies as French. This change happened because someone (mostly Napoleon) made it happen.
And the way it was done was the way IGI-111 says it was done, which is why IGI-111 thinks about his Frenchness in the way he does.
The same process happened in the US and other Western countries. German or Japanese immigrants had to learn to integrate one way or another. There aren't many French speakers left from the old Louisiana purchase either.
That France is only a couple centuries old, and it's riding on the coattails of a much more glorious past. What are the achievements of Democratic France? Colonizing sub-Saharan Africa? Getting colonized by America?
It may be that that process is currently slowing down, as much like Louis XVI, French (prospective) teachers have to first think about 'keeping' their head on their shoulders before too aggressively pushing for cultural changes.
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